Page 58 of Don't Go

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"Yeah, but — bartenders. They're like — "

"Therapists in cheap aprons. Yeah. Go ahead."

He turned the glass on the bar. "My brother's getting married in the spring."

"Mmm…"

"I'm in love with his fiancée."

I poured him a second whiskey because he was going to need it. "Have you told her?"

"No."

"Have you told him?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Are you planning to?"

He turned the glass again. "I — I don't know. Should I?"

I leaned my elbows on the bar, and I looked at him.

I looked at his decent shoes and his decent jaw and the hands he had wrapped around the glass like it was anchoring him to the planet, and I had nothing for him.

"Do whatever you want."

Kit was suddenly behind me.

He had come up the back of the bar quietly. He put his hand on my elbow. "You okay?"

"Yes."

He looked at me. But didn't push. Then turned to the customer.

"I'm going to take this one," he said quietly. "You go work the well."

"Kit."

"I've got it."

I went to the well.

Kit leaned both elbows on the bar in front of the customer and took the conversation off me like a man taking a coat off the back of a chair, and his voice came from behind me —Brother's getting married, you said?— and I tuned out and started cutting limes I didn't need.

The shift ended at one. Kit closed out with me. He counted down the till. He put the cash in the safe. He locked the back room.

"Sabrina, you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

He held my eyes for one second and nodded.

I took off my apron, put it in the locker, got my jacket from the hook, and went to the back door.

I pushed it open with my hip, and he was there in the alley, leaning against the brick wall.

I stopped.

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